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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rygar" data-source="post: 6456376" data-attributes="member: 6756765">I disagree.  The issue is vitally important.What we have here is,  at face value...-I attack the creature with my sword-I roll a To Hit roll-If I succeed To Hit then the creature takes damage-If I fail To Hit,  which is logically and by definition a miss,  then I do damage-If I fail To Hit,  and I still do damage even though I failed To Hit,  I can cause a creature to be dead.We further compound these statements with...-If my sword is poisoned and I succeed To Hit the creature is poisoned-If I fail To Hit and the creature still takes damage it is not poisoned.  -But I can still cause the creature to be dead so I must have hit it,  so why isn't it poisoned?The issue is,  what does the Average Person think when he sees these statements?  Is he going to accept an abstract explanation of combat and the words "Hit" and "Miss", and just accept that "something happened" but no one can actually explain what it was?  Will he accept that the words "Hit" and "Miss" have no meaning and no correlation to what they've described for him since toddlerhood?The answer to this question is vitally important.  Because if the average person is going to shake their head and walk away,  then this mechanic is a killing blow to a product.  It means it is a niche product that is purchased only by those who are ok with the words being undefined and meaningless for the sake of the mechanical effect.Honestly,  I really doubt that the average person is going to accept these things.  First because they run away from Quantum Physics as fast as they can,  the average person doesn't understand completely abstract thinking.  So Schrodinger's Combat, where most of the terms are undefined and no one can actually explain what is happening, is likely as big a turn off as an in depth discussion of Schrodinger's Cat.Second,  poking around the internet reveals some very common criticisms of RPG's.  "Why does my guy just stand there and let someone hit him?" in reference to turn based games,  "Why is that Wolf carrying gold?" in reference to incidental treasure.  If we're 40 years into turn based combat in RPG's and incidental treasure and that many people still haven't "Got" those fairly minimal abstractions what is the probability that they're suddenly going to be ok with complete abstractions?If I'm right and the average person wouldn't "Get" abstracting combat out completely then the issue is the difference between a product that sells well and a product that fails rapidly.</blockquote>

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